An Inspiring Interruption

Ephesians 3:1-13

What’s the difference between Cory and Nisha?

Let’s compare Cory and Nisha. At first glance, they seem quite similar. Both are grad students in a medical school specializing in neurological research. Both take the same classes, listen to the same professors, and accumulate the same killer tuition bills. But here’s the difference. Cory rolls himself out of bed in the morning, drags himself through every assignment, and thinks about quitting daily. Meanwhile, Nisha wakes up with a song in her heart, looking forward to her lab work eagerly and dreaming about graduation.

Why do they have such different mindsets and feelings about their studies? Because they’re training for different reasons. Cory chose this career path to impress his parents and make lots of money, but Nisha has a different goal in mind. Her parents suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, so she’s driven to find a cure.

What’s the difference between Ashley and Silvio?

Now compare Ashley and Silvio, who ALSO face similar situations. Both are teachers in NYC and have made the sudden shift to working from home in self-isolation. Ashley drags herself out of bed in the morning, mumbles “here we go again,” then reluctantly logs into Zoom. Meanwhile, Silvio pops out of bed with a smile on his face, asks God for the wisdom and strength he needs for the day, then logs into Microsoft Teams with eager enthusiasm.

Why do they have such different outlooks on their challenging work scenario? Because they’re teaching for different reasons. Ashley is teaching to pay off student loans, pay down credit card debt, and save for retirement. Silvio is teaching to shape lives, bring people to their God-given potential, and hopefully introduce some students to Christ.

What motivated Paul to pray from prison?

In Eph 3, Paul begins to pray for the Christians in the city of Ephesus once again. Perhaps you recall that he already prayed for them before (Eph 1:15-23). Now he begins to pray for them again, saying, “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles…” (Eph 3:1). This introduction to his prayer tells us three important things:

1. He was in prison, in isolated house arrest in Rome, chained to a Roman guard 24/7, waiting for a trial before Caesar that might even result in his execution.
2. He had a surprising view of his imprisonment. He didn’t view the difficult, uncomfortable, even scary situation as being imprisoned “by Rome” or “being treated unfairly.” He viewed it as something he did for Christ, as an opportunity to reach outsiders with the gospel, bringing them into God’s family forever.
3. He prayed for a special reason. He didn’t pray for a fast release from jail, physically healthy, or a positive outcome to his trial (which he likely did pray about, just not here). He prayed that more progress would happen for the church by drawing in more people from the nations of the world. He was praying for the gospel to keep on breaking down social barriers to Jesus. (“For this reason,” points back to all that he said in Eph 2 about how God is doing this through the church today.)

So, what motivated Paul in prison? His work for God and the spiritual success of the church. Never mind that he was in prison for unfair reasons, far from home in uncomfortable conditions, facing an uncertain future in isolation from his friends. As he saw it, he was in prison for Jesus and he was laser-focused on the progress of the church.

Corrie Ten Boom, a Jewish Christian who suffered horrible things in WW2, said she viewed wherever she was as the place where God wanted her to take the gospel – even if that place was a German concentration camp. This was Paul’s perspective, too. But is that how we’re viewing our difficult situations today?

When we grip onto the gospel, we don’t gripe about our suffering.

That’s what we learn from the next several verses (Eph 3:2-13). We expect these verses to be about Paul’s prayer, the one he introduced in the first verse, but they’re not (Eph 3:1). They’re not because Paul interrupts himself.

Do you ever do that? You start to say one thing, then you interrupt yourself to say something else that comes to mind? I do that sometimes and sometimes I forget what I was going to say in the first place! That’s embarrassing. Thankfully, Paul didn’t forget what he wanted to say (or pray). He gets right back to that afterward (Eph 3:14-21).

What’s fascinating about Paul’s interruption is that he doesn’t really say anything especially new. He repeats and expands in more words what he already said in the previous section (Eph 2:11-22). Do you know what that was? Through Christ, God has broken down the wall of separation between the ethnic people groups of the world, making it possible for them all to be equal children in his heavenly family. This accomplishment continues to expand through his worldwide building project called the church.

Before Paul moves on to his prayer (Eph 3:13-21) and gets ready to teach some valuable things about how to live the Christian life (Eph 4-6), he takes some more time to talk about the amazing thing God is doing through the church – how he is bringing all kinds of people together into a life-changing relationship with Jesus and with one another.

Gospel meditation tops a dire situation.

Now, gospel meditation doesn’t necessarily stop a dire situation, but it definitely tops a dire situation. (Paul didn’t get out of prison just because he focused on the gospel.) But we do get a window into Paul’s meditations in prison here because he shows us what he thought about in prison.

This shows us what we should think about when we’re suffering, too. We should think long and hard about the gospel and the church. We should think about our situations in light of the gospel and how we can leverage our situations for the benefit of the church. Being part of the church is so much more amazing than we realize, even more than finding a cure for Alzheimer’s!

When we focus on the gospel and our place in the church, guess what happens. We praise God more and complain about our situation less because we see our situation in a whole new light. We find a real source of motivation to rise above our for Christ.

Let’s take a closer look at some ways Paul thought about himself and his suffering in light of the gospel.

He thought about being a steward of God’s grace (Eph 3:2).

Paul interrupted himself by saying, “If indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you” (Eph 3:2). The word dispensation (οἰκονομία) describes the responsibility of a steward, someone with the job of taking care of someone else’s family, house, and money.

The idea is that there is a householder (God) with a household (the church) and he assigned a household steward (Paul) to carry out his plans for his house. Today, this would be someone like a power of attorney, the executor of someone’s will, or an administrative assistant.

When Paul talks about this, he refers to the moment God called him into service. Paul was traveling to the city of Jerusalem with one goal in mind – to persecute the church, putting Christians into prison and killing others, but Christ appeared to him (Acts 9:1-9).

Not long afterward, God said, “He is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:15-16). God had assigned Paul a special task, to build inroads for the gospel and to expand the influence of Christ’s church throughout the people groups of the world.

Paul knew he didn’t deserve this assignment and he also grasped how great it truly was. This calling from God is what drove him. He thought about it a lot, especially in prison. That’s why he didn’t complain. His suffering came with the job, so he accepted his suffering gladly in light of the glory of his mission.

He thought about the newness of the church (Eph 3:3-5, 9).

What’s it like to get something new? When I was a kid, our family lived frugally, so we usually bought used clothing from Goodwill, the Salvation Army, garage sales, and so on. On those rare occasions when we bought new clothing, I treated that clothing like something special. I tried really hard not to get any stains on it and wouldn’t wear it in messy situations.

Whenever my father purchased a new car (which was actually a used car that was new to us), I remember going down to the garage when he brought it home. It was always waxed, clean, and super shiny. And I remember the fresh, clean smell when we climbed inside to check out all the new features. For months beyond that, I looked forward to riding in the car and would be extra careful to take good care of it because it was new (to us).

Paul never got over the newness of the church. To him, that newness made the church something extra special. It wasn’t just the same old thing or business as usual. The truth about the church had been revealed to Paul by direct revelation from God, not just from the Old Testament (Eph 3:3).

The church was also a mystery that God had only recently uncovered (Eph 3:3). The word mystery here doesn’t refer to a Sherlock Holmes type mystery, a trail of tricky clues that lead to a shocking conclusion. Instead, it refers to something unknown in the past (in the OT) with no obvious clues but is now made known.

Furthermore, it was a new reality revealed by God to Paul that other believers were supposed to hear about from him and understand (Eph 3:4). How would they hear? By reading what he wrote to them in Scripture (Eph 3:4).

What was this mystery that was revealed (Eph 3:5)? “The mystery of Christ,” which refers to how the death and resurrection of Christ was breaking down the age-old barriers between Jews and the nations of the world, bringing people from every nation into one big family of God.

Then Paul emphasized that the church wasn’t just new to him, but it was new to the entire world. This revelation was a bigger deal than locating the submerged lost city of Atlantis, discovering the cure for cancer, or inventing a safe method of personal teleportation. The church was a groundbreaking development “which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men” (Eph 3:5).

Now – through Paul and the other apostles – the foundation was being laid for centuries to come as they wrote down permanent revelation from the same Spirit of God who brought order to the creation of the world. He says a similar thing in Eph 3:9, “To make all see what is the fellowship [dispensation] of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.”

Though Paul was captured by the Roman empire, he was captivated even more by the gospel and his role in building the church of Christ. It was such a new and special development in the plan of God that he embraced his responsibility to see it advance, no matter what suffering he endured in doing so.

Is the church commonplace to you? Just another thing to do on Sunday when you have the time, just something to dabble in or squeeze in when you can. Just one way to get a little social interaction, emotional encouragement, or biblical information? Is it like a new outfit or a new car … exciting sometime earlier in your life, but just ordinary and regular now? May the newness of the church recapture our hearts and inspire us to make it even more successful for Christ, even in our suffering.

He thought about the outcomes of his effort (Eph 3:6, 10-12).

Paul thought long and hard about the responsibility to bring the gospel to the world and the newness of the church that he was part of building in the world. He also thought long and hard about the outcomes of his efforts.

The first outcome he thought about was that more and more people from all nations of the world would become equal recipients of God’s promise. Paul said, “that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel” (Eph 3:6). The church wasn’t a Jewish thing. It was a global thing. It was not a religion for one culture or another. It was God’s religion for every culture of the world – a family composed of people from all nations of the world – and this excited Paul a lot. Does it excite you?

The second outcome that captured Paul’s imagination was what the church was accomplishing in the spiritual realm, a whole ‘nother realm that we can’t see right now but will probably be able to see in eternity. He said, “To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph 3:10-11).

We don’t think enough about this, but we should probably think about it more. God made angels as glorious, resplendent, powerful spiritual beings to praise him in glorious ways. They can see God and praise him for what they see. They saw him create the world and can praise him for that. But when they see people like us who believe on Christ, become more like Christ, and bring others to Christ and into the church, we give them one more way to praise God, a way that may astound them more than anything else.

The third outcome that captured Paul’s mind is the newfound freedom of access we have to Christ. He says of Christ through the church, “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him” (Eph 3:12). Here he’s talking (or thinking) about the humongous difference between the way that OT believers approached God through by going to the Temple, offering elaborate sacrifices, waiting on priests to do some extra things, and then fellowshipping with God to a limited degree.

While it’s true that even closer contact with God awaits in eternity, we have far superior access to him today compared to the OT. We don’t need priests, we don’t need sacrifices, we don’t need temples or shrines. We have Christ and by relying on him and his once-for-all sacrifice alone through faith, people from any nation of the world not only becomes a child in God’s family, but receives free, open access to speak with God at any time.

He thought about God’s enabling power (Eph 3:7).

Here’s one more thing Paul thought about in prison. “Of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power” (Eph 3:7). These “power” words in this instance emphasize “enabling” power rather than the power of authority. So, he is saying that he relied on the grace of God – the gospel of grace – as more than a message of salvation from sin and the grave. He viewed it as the source and supply of never-ending power, energy, and ability for service. Whatever God called him to do for the gospel and the building of the church, he would enable him to do it. God doesn’t promise that you won’t suffer when you spread the gospel and serve the church. In fact, he promises quite the opposite.

Just to let you know, Paul would eventually get out of prison in Rome, but he would go back in again at a later time – and that time for his execution. In that final visit to prison years later, he would write, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (1 Tim 3:12).

Suffering is an inescapable experience if you’re a Christian, especially if you’re a Christian who’s captivated by the gospel and committed to serving the church. However, Paul embraced this challenge wholeheartedly because he had thought long and hard about the fact that God would enable him to get the job done – which leads to the punchline of this long interruption to Paul’s prayer for the believers in Ephesus.

He suffered for the spiritual benefit of the church (Eph 3:13).

A well-meaning, Christlike brother in the Lord sent me a message recently as they were thinking about me and praying for me during this pandemic. They said, “Pastor, there’s so much going on, and so much occupying you right now. So, I’m just praying for strength and wisdom for you as you give attention to so many things.” Now let me be clear, what I’m going through is nowhere close to what Paul suffered in prison, and it’s nowhere close to what some of you in our church as experiencing right now, either.

That said, here’s how I responded. I sent him the words of Eph 3:13. Why come up with something else to say when Paul said it best in Scripture? “I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.” Whenever Paul suffered in his service of the gospel for the church, he embraced the challenge as an opportunity because he believed it would bring about a better, healthier, and stronger church for the glory of God.

And that’s what I want to do for Faith Baptist Church – by God’s grace. Whatever I go through in this pandemic, I want it to have the net effect of strengthening our church so that we reflect the goodness and greatness of God’s grace more as a result.

That’s also why Paul interrupted himself before he prayed. Before he told the Ephesians how he prayed for them, he wanted them to get a grip on the gospel and to let go of their discouraged feelings about his suffering – and they’re suffering, too.

Are we gripping to the gospel or discouraged by our suffering?

Is that your view? Or are you grimacing and griping, hoping to get back to normal just because and feeling sorry for one another?

What motivates you as you go through your day and face the challenges that stand in your way. Do you gut it out like Cory who went through medical school only to please his parents and make money? Or do you embrace the challenge with the enthusiasm of Nisha who dreamed and was driven to discover a cure for Alzheimer’s?

Let’s imagine a church that doesn’t feel sorry for me, doesn’t feel sorry for you and doesn’t feel sorry for one another. A church that gets out of bed with a passion for the gospel, who dreams about the glories of the gospel, and who suffers gladly for the gospel and the church. Who sets the complaints aside and seizes this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to suffer in a gospel-focused way that builds our church.

Let’s imagine a church that thinks long and hard about the gospel and embraces our roles in serving the church. A church that envisions new ways and seizes new opportunities to break new ground for the gospel into the nations of the world, right here in Queens. A church that comes back together, whenever that is, better than before for God’s glory.